If Not Now, When?
Is the latest focus on AI a fad? As you’ll read in some of the articles I link to below, there’s now some second-guessing about the near-term adoption of tools like ChatGPT and Bard. One article from The Honest Broker states, “A huge amount has been invested into AI, but consumers aren’t taking the bait. They’re treating it like those American Online startup disks in the mail.” I was around when America Online (AOL) CDs were used as beer coasters, and even though AOL went from popular to a running joke, the Internet eventually became ubiquitous.
While these arguments mainly focus on consumer-facing Generative AI applications, I see the same thing in the corporate world. The rush to incorporate AI into…everything…means companies are trying to shoe-horn LLMs and such on top of their corporate databases and information systems. Anyone who’s seen these systems knows the horror show that often awaits. We often ignore the “boring” stuff like data modeling, quality, and governance. As a result, old standbys like business intelligence (BI) are still elusive. And now we want to throw AI on top of this? In a time when budgets and timelines are short, I don’t expect this to end well.
I’ve participated in other ML/AI hype cycles, and this time seems particularly critical. Separating signal from noise is key. The investor/startup hype will recede (this is the nature of bubbles). Thankfully, the underlying potential of GenerativeAI is real. For example, ChatGPT and Bard have actual utility in quite a few use cases. But if the underlying data the LLM is built upon is crap, given LLM’s tendency to hallucinate on a good day, what do you think will happen?
For decades, the data industry has been screaming about the need to “add value” and “the business just doesn’t get it.” With the massive attention on AI, this is THE opportunity for the data industry to start leading from the front. If we can’t take stuff like data modeling, quality, and governance seriously now, when will we?
Listen to the audio clip above on this topic, which is also my 5 Minute Friday on Spotify.
Cool Weekend Reads
Hope you all had a great week. I’ve been touring Australia all week and really enjoying it!
Here are some cool things I read this week…
Tech, AI & Data
The Rise and Fall of ChatGPT? (Gary Marcus)
“In less than a year, ChatGPT has gone from being mistaken for AGI to being the butt of a joke, and an insulting shorthand for robotic, incoherent, unreliable, and untrustworthy.”
Gary Marcus has some great points on reality hitting the AI market (he’s also a very vocal bear on AI hype). I’m also seeing anecdotal evidence that companies are now realizing AI isn’t just a magical thing, and actually requires work and investment. I also participated in other ML/ “AI” hype cycles, and this feels very familiar.
Time will tell whether AI is the real-deal, or if Generative AI turns out to be a dud.
Ugly Numbers from Microsoft and ChatGPT Reveal that AI Demand is Already Shrinking (Honest Broker)
“The only areas where AI is flourishing are shamming, spamming & scamming”
See above article too…
Announcing Python in Excel: Combining the power of Python and the flexibility of Excel. (Microsoft)
Excel is rad. Python is too. This is pretty damn cool…
Early days of AI (and AI Hype Cycle) (Elad Gil)
I believe in the the long-term potential of AI, and agree with Elad’s premise that the latest crop of ML/AI is “different”. Wave 3 and 4 is where my earlier rant applies - real enterprise adoption.
Business & Startups
Tech's broken promises (Insider)
Notice how streaming TV, ride-shares, cloud, and other “innovations” are now often more expensive than the things they were meant to replace?
Managing difficult software engineers (Vadim Kravecenko)
If you’ve managed people (SWE or other), you sometimes get difficult people. I may or may not have been called “difficult” in the past, so this is a good read I can sympathize with.
New Content, Events, and Upcoming Stuff
Monday Morning Data Chat
Coming up…
Monday 8/28 - Data Grifters w/ Aaron Hunsaker (LinkedIn, YouTube)
In case you missed it…
The Power of 3 (Math Nerds, Professors, and O'Reilly Authors) w/ Hala Nelson (Spotify, YouTube)
Streaming Data Processing Deep Dive w/ David Yaffe and Johnny Graettinger (co-founders of Estuary) (Spotify, YouTube)
The Rise and Importance of Business Language w/ John O'Gorman (Spotify, YouTube)
The Joe Reis Show
5 Minute Friday - If Not Now, When? (Spotify)
Kevin Hu - How the Data Landscape Evolves Alongside LLM’s (Spotify)
In case you missed it…
5 Minute Friday - Data NIMBYism and Gatekeeping w/ Matt Housley (Spotify)
Gordon Wong - Building Trust, Leading and Unblocking Your Data Team (Spotify)
5 Minute Friday - The Dev and Data Divide (Spotify)
Vin Vashishta - From Data to Profit, Writing a Book, and more (Spotify)
Events
August
Australia - DataEngBytes - I’ll be on the continental tour in Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Sydney for a couple of weeks. August 2023 more info and registration
September
Joe Reis + dbt roadshow - Bellevue, WA (9/7) - register here!
Big Data London- 9/20 - register here
October
Bangalore, India - 10/12. DEWcon - register here
Dubai - 10/16-10/19. GITEX. Details TBA
Chicago - 10/26 - GOTO Conference Data Engineering Workshop. Details TBA
November
Canada - DAMA Toronto. Details TBA
Finland - ? TBA
Las Vegas - ReInvent - got a massive special announcement in store :)
2024 - lots of stuff. Stay tuned :)
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Monday Morning Data Chat (YouTube / Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts). Matt Housely and I interview the top people in the field. Live and unscripted. Zero shilling tolerated.
The Joe Reis Show (Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts). My other show. I interview guests, and it’s totally unscripted with no shilling.
Fundamentals of Data Engineering (Amazon, O’Reilly, and wherever you get your books)
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